Skip to main content

Question about flexible public (bank) holidays

  • May 21, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 221 views
brittbosma
Follower
Forum|alt.badge.img+1

Dear Community,

We’re currently exploring the possibility of offering employees the flexibility to swap a few public (bank) holidays throughout the year. Some public holidays are religious in nature, and some employees may prefer to take a day off for occasions such as Eid al-Fitr or Keti Koti instead of, for example, Pentecost. 

 

We already foresee a bit of an administrative hassle for this, so we are wondering if there are companies that have this benefit and can tell me how you approach this?

 

Thanks in advance for your advice! 

May 21, 2025

It’s a great question, and one that we have previously explored, but we don’t currently offer this option. 

I do have some links/info that might be helpful, from the report I put together a year or so ago for our SLT to consider: 

Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton has implemented full flexibility with all 8 ‘bank holiday’ days, and has seen around 20% of their employees choose to work the English Bank Holidays.
https://careers.grantthornton.co.uk/life-at-grant-thornton/our-people-stories/2022/august/08/flexible-bank-holidays/

 

Ovo Energy

Ovo Energy UK have offered a single Bank holiday day that can be used on a different day of the year. They also offer unlimited compassionate leave, ‘recharge leave’ and ‘moments that matter’ leave – so have a variety of flexible leave schemes in place.
https://company.ovo.com/3-in-4-workers-in-the-uk-want-flexible-bank-holidays/

 

Billion Dollar Boy

Billion Dollar Boy has implemented full flexibility with all 8 ‘bank holiday’ days.
https://employeebenefits.co.uk/billion-dollar-boy-introduces-inclusive-bank-holiday-policy/

 

Linklaters

Linklaters has offered three Bank holiday days that can be used on different days of the year.
https://www.linklaters.com/en/about-us/news-and-deals/news/2023/march/linklaters-introduces-new-flexible-bank-holiday-scheme

 

BBC article on flexible Bank Holiday policies (2022)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62491321

 

People Management magazine (CIPD) article on flexible Bank Holiday policies (2023)

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1821683/hr-ensure-fairness-flexible-bank-holiday-policies

7 replies

Moe
Community Admin
Forum|alt.badge.img+11
  • MoeCommunity Admin
  • Community Admin
  • 324 replies
  • May 21, 2025

Hi ​@brittbosma ! 

Just tagging one of our Problem Solvers, ​@HRJoy, for some help on this one 😄

HRJoy
Helping Hand
Forum|alt.badge.img+13
  • HRJoyHelping Hand
  • Helping Hand
  • 134 replies
  • May 21, 2025

It’s a great question, and one that we have previously explored, but we don’t currently offer this option. 

I do have some links/info that might be helpful, from the report I put together a year or so ago for our SLT to consider: 

Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton has implemented full flexibility with all 8 ‘bank holiday’ days, and has seen around 20% of their employees choose to work the English Bank Holidays.
https://careers.grantthornton.co.uk/life-at-grant-thornton/our-people-stories/2022/august/08/flexible-bank-holidays/

 

Ovo Energy

Ovo Energy UK have offered a single Bank holiday day that can be used on a different day of the year. They also offer unlimited compassionate leave, ‘recharge leave’ and ‘moments that matter’ leave – so have a variety of flexible leave schemes in place.
https://company.ovo.com/3-in-4-workers-in-the-uk-want-flexible-bank-holidays/

 

Billion Dollar Boy

Billion Dollar Boy has implemented full flexibility with all 8 ‘bank holiday’ days.
https://employeebenefits.co.uk/billion-dollar-boy-introduces-inclusive-bank-holiday-policy/

 

Linklaters

Linklaters has offered three Bank holiday days that can be used on different days of the year.
https://www.linklaters.com/en/about-us/news-and-deals/news/2023/march/linklaters-introduces-new-flexible-bank-holiday-scheme

 

BBC article on flexible Bank Holiday policies (2022)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62491321

 

People Management magazine (CIPD) article on flexible Bank Holiday policies (2023)

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1821683/hr-ensure-fairness-flexible-bank-holiday-policies

SabbuSchreiber
Helping Hand
Forum|alt.badge.img+14
  • SabbuSchreiberHelping Hand
  • Helping Hand
  • 214 replies
  • May 22, 2025

Great topic! Thanks for sharing those articles ​@HRJoy 😊 Before changing industry, I’ve only known the version with having full flexible public holidays and being able to use them whenever I wanted and I sometimes miss this 😄

I’ll for sure take this up in our team now.

brittbosma
Follower
Forum|alt.badge.img+1
  • brittbosmaFollower
  • Author
  • Follower
  • 5 replies
  • May 22, 2025

Thanks ​@HRJoy and ​@SabbuSchreiber, very insightful! :)

I will see if I can find some advice on admin workarounds in these articles and otherwise I hope that an HR expert might add some ideas here in this post :)

Moe
Community Admin
Forum|alt.badge.img+11
  • MoeCommunity Admin
  • Community Admin
  • 324 replies
  • May 27, 2025

Some more folks who might be helpful here:

​@Nathan Jolly ​@rstambolieva ​@Laure.vanpelt ​@Edda van der Ende 

F
Follower
  • FionaWHISFollower
  • Follower
  • 3 replies
  • June 10, 2025

Hi ​@brittbosma - we introduced 3 flexible public holidays this year (3 of the 8 UK holidays). I am happy to share details of what we did to implement this in more detail with you.

We have had to set up an additional office on Personio in order to manage the different public holiday arrangements (couldn’t find another way of doing this!) and used MS forms for people to apply to take up the scheme. It’s early days, with a small take up, but those that have opted for it are happy with it. 

Let me know if you’d like to discuss in more detail :) 

M
Getting Started
  • MarjoleinGetting Started
  • Getting Started
  • 2 replies
  • July 8, 2025

Hi Britt,

We have created a new absence type called “Public holiday Exchange”. 

Employees select the day they would like to be off and indicate in the comments which Dutch public holiday they wish to exchange it with. 

No entitlement limitations, approval flow: 1. Supervisor; 2.HR 

Hope this is useful!

Best regards,

Marjolein


Terms & Conditions of the Personio Voyager CommunityAccessibility statement